Heartdown
by Caine's Kiss
Summary: Gregory meditates on the nature of being renegade, and settles some Family business, then a crisis ensues. Enjoy and of course Please R&R! Complete
1. Gethsemene

**Gethsemane **

caineskiss@hotmail.com

**I admit the title is a little pretentious but the tone of this series gets a lot darker. One of the darkest books in the English language is the Bible, after all it's not all sweetness and light and the God of Love in Revelations and most of the Old Testament. Here is Gregory alone, struggling with his own inner demons and his past. Hey, why can't a Time Lord be screwed up?**

_"Where there's life, there's hope."_

Common Proverb

Avanno sat amongst the long grass, on the mountainside, meditating. He felt the river of Time flowing around him like a whispering brook slipping around a rock in its path, then reshaping as if nothing were there.

*              *              *

Gregory sat amongst the long grass, in the TARDIS' arboretum, meditating. He felt the lashings of the raw Time winds beating against the shell of his craft, it seemed like the lashings of the penitents striking his ship. In front of him sat a beautiful red and yellow flower like an orchid with petals of coral, it had never left the TARDIS, and inside it nestled the instructions for growing another House. Gregory set aside the condition of his ship, and focused on the plant gradually stripping it of mineral salts. As he did so it wilted and the energy it required diverted elsewhere.

*              *              *

"History repeats itself. It always repeats itself. At the beginning of the Universe, an outward rush of matter occurs creating stars and planets to be born. At the end of the Universe, those same stars and planets rejoin the mass they were formed from, ready to form again anew. That's Life…"

"Really Cousin Salyavin?"

"Yes Avanno, that is why Travel theory only allows back as far as Event 1"

"I thought that was the back-time buffers."

"Yes…" smiled the older Time Lord, "They only prevent us going to Gallifrey's past."

The Time Tot looked up at his elder Cousin. "I think it's time for you to be in brain-buffing or something, or our Housekeeper Runsazixiel will have my head." The tall blond Time Lord stood up from where they had been lazing in the meadow near the House, looking at the sky and the clouds and luminosity of the transduction barrier. He scooped up Avanno, and plonked him on to his shoulders. They set off through the long grass the Time Tot nearly squealing with delight, Salyavin stopped short as he noticed his younger Cousin Phyllisopora walking through the grass, long green stems flicking at her robes. Definitely more serious than the other two, Phyllisopora was still branded one of 'The Rebels' by Runsazixiel. The group consisted of Salyavin, Phyllisopora and Avanno, and was mildly tolerated rather than excessively pursued, though this more down to Phyllisopora's sensible attitude and desire to impress her elders.

"Where were you?" Asked Phyllisopora concerned

"We were talking about Time," giggled Avanno, Phyllisopora looked up at him and glared, Avanno sulkily replied, "It was intellectually stimulating."

Phyll looked unimpressed, "Really?"

"Of course," Salyavin flashed her a winning grin.

"Well next time don't take time out of Avanno's buffing to do it."

"Sorry, but I came home from the Academy to see the Family, the only one who's pleased to see me is the youngest Cousin. Speaking of whom…" Salyavin finished looking up.

Avanno slid down Salyavin's back and ran off to class.

*              *              *

The Flower wilted and died, and with the last hope of ever recreating Heartdown, the chance of seeing the home of his memories rotted amongst fallen leaves and grass.


	2. Golgotha

****

Golgotha

caineskiss@hotmail.com

****

The second part of Heartdown, equally pretentious and a lot bitterer, I would say "Enjoy!" but… I think this is some of my darker work and though not especially grim does capture the essence of Gregory's distanced psyche and some of the reasons for it.

Gregory stood on the hill, looking down the meadow. The long swaying grass covered the stone markers that he had founded almost four hundred years ago, those names inscribed with great care peeped through the grass like shy children. The smell of burning flesh still assailed his nostrils; the stench of death from centuries past bowed his head and forced the memories.

***

Across the hill they had come like black bees swarming in skimmers from the mountain pass. He had missed them as his path took him away from their complex by the Capitol. The House had welcomed them, in its hospitality, and suffered as a result. 

Avanno stood on the hill the meadow was scorched, carbonised grass that crunched beneath his feet as he walked like black snow. He headed into the classroom to find Threads, a pillar of black ash, and the blasted shell of the avatroid: its internal circuits blown. He walked into the main hall to see many of the young ones, most of the House, he did a body count there was one missing. He looked at the pillars, bodies now monochrome images in memoriam to their former inhabitants.

Avanno returned to the slightly fresher exterior, there the roasted smell was slightly more bearable. There was a figure dressed in the same black jumpsuit that mirrored his own, the silver belt buckle etched with the arcane mark of the old Celestine: Death, the same.

"You served us so well," said the figure, "and now you see the price of betrayal."

"This is disgusting."

"Then we are agreed, but you betrayed us, this is the result."

"What do you want?"

"We want you to return, your House is gone, we are your Family now."

"No."

"I'm sorry, did I give you the impression that this was a choice? This is an order and you are expected to obey orders."

"You have no authority over me."

"I beg to differ." The figure smiled and gestured to the remains of the House.

"You killed civilians. That's the only power you have, The OCPC is nothing now!"

"You are fool Avanno! You should have never been an Agent, you are an ideological naïve imbecile."

"It runs in the Family."

"RAN in the family." The figure levelled his weapon at Avanno, "Goodbye partner, it was a pleasure…"

Avanno bent back on his knees, a Venusian aikido move, energy in him like a coiled spring, the blast sailed over his head exploding on the wall behind him. Avanno flicked back into a diving jump barrelling into his opponent before he time to charge up another shot. Avanno griped the staser and twisted it out of the other's grip; he relaxed pointing it directly at his former partner's chest. 

"Why?"

"You always were one for who, what, when, where, how and why."

"Tell me," Avanno spat through gritted teeth, "Or I'll kill you."

"You wouldn't shoot a former colleague, and now, a most senior officer."

A flash of energy exploded along his back, covering his whole body. Avanno stepped back as the skin cracked into a dry black layer. The cooked meat smell strengthened, as Avanno sidestepped to avoid the body collapsing into dust, revealing Phyllisopora holding a staser.

"No, but I would you _srhorikaan_!" she spat, she turned to Avanno, "Thank Rassilon, you're here." 

"I know, I know there are just three of us now…"

***

Gregory turned back to the 'tree' on the hill, "One down," he muttered. "Two to go."

****


	3. Revelations

****

Revelations

caineskiss@hotmail.com

The Final part of Heartdown takes place post-Ancestor Cell, and is grim, however I can promise a considerable lowering of the grimness, this is due to the fact that it is depressing and I hope that a nice adventure story can be got on with. However it has to be written first. Please R&R as your input is important to me.

__

"And I beheld when he had opened the sixth _seal__, and, lo, there was a great __earthquake__; and the __sun__ became __black__ as __sackcloth__ of __hair__, and the __moon__ became as __blood__; And the __stars__ of __heaven__ fell unto the __earth__, even as a __fig__ tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.._

".And the kings of the _earth__, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free __man__, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;.For the great __day__ of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?"_

-The Revelation of St John the Divine 6: 12-17

Gregory returned to the console room and closed the doors, he activated the dematerialization controls. He listened to the entrance of the Vortex, and relaxed: he had avoided the transduction barrier. He set the controls for a twenty-fifth century space-dock that he thought Stacey would enjoy seeing. She had slept for a while when he showed her to her room, and he had set up a recurring temporal loop around that area so she would sleep until he was finished dealing with personal issues. He had willed the Flower of Heartdown dead, and so it was worthless. He had a new life now, no more Family, no more OCPC, he was a renegade now fleeing his former employers across the Universe. A jolt shook the ship and he heard the booming Cloister bell resound through the Ship, then it was cut short as the lights flickered and died. 

Stacey woke up to total darkness, the crack of light under the door was gone and the grey ambience that precluded darkness on the craft was gone. She sat up in bed and looked around, it was growing darker and colder.

Gregory rummaged through his pockets and pulled out a small lighter, he felt the engraving, "To Mr Smith, The only man who left me with that 'I should have said.' feeling, D.P" He clicked it open and it filled the room with a yellow flickering light. He jogged to one of the illustrated doors and flung it open, and ran full tilt down the presenting corridor, the lighter held in front of him like a static Will O' the Wisp. 

Stacey heard the sound of running and yellow light appeared under the door.

"Hello?"

The sound stopped with two clicks and so did the motion of the light.

"Hello."

"Is that you?"

"Yes."

"What are you doing?"

"Talking to you."

"Yes, what were you doing?"

"I was running to see if you were awake."

"I am, why?"

"Well, I think it's time we gave you a practical 'supervision' on Black Holes and how to keep them. And to put that much vaunted Physics degree to the test."

"Oh, I'm not dressed."

A velvet clad arm emerged brandishing a silver lighter with a flame that was glowing brightly, Stacey wrapped a bed sheet around herself and clicked it off and took it off Gregory. The hand disappeared, and the bedroom door clicked too, Stacey clicked open the lighter rested it on the bedside table and dressed hurriedly. She picked up the lighter and clicked it back on again to find the door, she opened it to find Gregory sitting in the lotus. His eyes were closed and he was breathing deeply.

"Who's D. P.?"

"Oh, that was a present from Dorothy!" he paused suddenly serious, "We have to hurry, The TARDIS is losing power, the energy reserves have been drained of any usable power."

"That doesn't sound very good."

"It isn't. I estimate we have a couple of hours life support before the craft begins cannibalising itself for energy."

"It can do that?! What do we do?"

"We try and avoid it."

"Yeah I'd figured that out, I meant how?"

"How what?"

"How do we save our selves?"

"We have to kick-start the Eye of Harmony!"

"The Eye of what?!"

Gregory sighed, "The Eye of Harmony is the power source of the ship. It's really a dimension-mathematical copy based on a system known as Block-Transfer Computation."

"Correct me if I'm wrong."

"Count on it."

Stacey continued, ".but we have to restart a power source that is more than likely to be extremely powerful."

".an altered sun."

".Fine, an altered sun, one of the most powerful things in the cosmos. Not only do we have to restart this but you are telling me that this 'altered' sun is not only here but exists in.oh I don't know. at least two places at once! You don't need an advanced physicist you need an advanced metaphysicist!"

"Yeah, but I've got you, so you'll have to do."

"Thanks."

"Oh, come on! Insurmountable odds, the likelihood of a horrendous painful death, where's your sense of adventure?"

"We are totally f."

"Fine," interrupted Gregory, "That's the spirit! How many people get to say they have firsthand experience with reconstructing a Dyson sphere?"

"They're only theoretical!"

"You are a theoretical physicist, are you not?"

"Oh, sod it! Lead on dark stranger!"

"I'm not a stranger I'm your ex!" 

"Move it!"

They sped off into the darkness with a flickering flame leading them on. After twenty minutes they arrived in the cloister room, where the hemisphere of the Eye sat still and quiet. Gregory ran to a small door cut into the side of a grand staircase, he opened and pulled out some beacon lights, he flicked a switch on one and threw it to Stacey, and she caught it and pulled out the tripod legs. Setting it on the ground, she said. 

"What's the plan?"

"I have no idea."

"That's vaguely discomfiting."

"I'll know what to do when I find out the state of the TARDIS energy resources."

"Right, and do you do that?"

"Just help me set these lights up!"

"All right, all right, calm down!"

They set up the lights in silence, Gregory was dark and pensive, not that that made too much of a change for Stacey. It was concerning for her that you were never quite sure with Gregory what he was thinking or what he was planning. They finished and the area around the Eye was filled with light, Gregory ducked back into the cubbyhole and pulled out some large cables that trailed into the cupboard. He removed the staffs that were set into each corner of the Eye and seemed immensely heavy, but he lifted them lightly and rolled them into a corner of the room, then he inserted the cables into each corner of the square base.

"Jump leads?" asked Stacey, to break the silence.

"Yes." Gregory refused to be drawn into any more discussion, as he ducked back in the store cupboard and pulled out a tea trolley toppling with tools and bizarre looking items some of which looked decidedly dangerous. On the side of the Eye closest to the door was a console, raised slightly above the floor, it was a flat square box that featured some bizarre looking typewriter keys, dials and switches. Gregory leaned over it, tired and slumped, like virtuoso pianist about to play a long and hard symphony after many, many sleepless nights. 

"Are you okay?" Stacey looked at him with concern.

He straightened himself and returned to his firm posture, "Yeah, I'm good. I only hope that this works. Let me start by asking you a question."

"Okay. If it helps."

"If you were going to stop an unpredictable celestial phenomenon that powers a vehicle that could travel through space-time from producing that power, how would you do it?"

"Well, if it's an infinitely producing power source." Stacey paused for a minute, "You couldn't. There has to be a trade-off between the amount of power coming out and the potential energy. So therefore you can't stop it you have to divert power from the source."

"Where to?"

"Somewhere that could take the necessary power drain for a long period of time, say.infinity and direct it there."

"Excellent! Now where did I bleed the excess power?" Gregory mused for a second, then wailed in desperation "Oh no!"

"What is it?"

"I remembered what I did with the power."

"What..?"

"I used it to restart the Eye of Harmony."

"So why ask for my help, if you've done it before?"

"Well last time I did this I was under the influence of the TARDIS, also there was another Eye of Harmony, the original, on my home-world."

"So what's happened to it?"

"We must have lost contact with it. As long as I can restart the Eye, we should be fine. To be honest it'll be easier to get around I should have done it centuries ago."

"Surely you want to go home sometime."

Gregory smiled, "Probably not, I don't really have much to go back to."

"Surely you have a home where you come from."

"That was centuries ago. I have no home now."

"That's so sad." Stacey looked at him for a moment, "And you're gonna die too if we don't fix the Eye, right?"

"Right. Where was I?"

"Restarting the Eye but no more energy."

"That might not be true, there may be some residual energy left over."

"What?"

"It's all or nothing, really. This works or we both die."

"Before I say yes. What are you doing?"

"Well, the plan is to gather all the spare energy in the TARDIS and use it to feed the Eye of Harmony. The energy going in should be enough to stabilise the black hole's existence as part of the micro- universe that is this ship. Therefore creating a complete copy that is no longer sympathetic with the main Eye on the home-world."

"Right." Stacey paused for almost a second, "I have no idea of what you just said but it used technical sounding words and I assume that what you said was both correct and more likely to save my life."

"I wish I had your confidence."

"So do I."

"I'll just get on with it, shall I?"

Stacey nodded solemnly, as Gregory twiddled with some dials on the cloister console. He seemed to flick switches and punch buttons in almost frenetic dance of clicking and whirring mechanism then he stopped and looked at her. His hand was poised over a button that looked like an old-fashioned doorbell.

He took a deep breath, "May the Celestii be with us." then he plunged his hand onto the button.

The lights went out, the room was pitched black and the temperature plummeted, Stacey was counting in her mind, "5.4.3.2.."

Suddenly a lantern flickered back to life followed by another. Then there was the sound of dematerialization and the TARDIS seemed to come to life, and warmth began to fill the craft again.

Gregory leapt into the air shouting, "Yes! Rassilon, yes!"

"Colourful!"

Gregory ran, practically skipping down the corridor to the console room. There he leaped over the railings and started on the controls. Stacey followed, walking sedately behind him, she stopped and leaned against one of the pillars that corresponded to one of the corners of the hexagonal dais.

"Why did the Eye stop working?"

"I told you we lost contact with the main Eye on Gallifrey."

"I don't pretend to understand sympathetic systems but I think I know enough that you lied to me!"

"What?!"

"Are you telling me that an advanced race like the one you purport to be from cannot create a simple backup program if a black hole just cuts out, or how should a black hole just cut out?! Something important happened but you can't or won't tell me what it is!"

"I would but that's all there is to it."

"Bullshit! Look I'm scared, if you even understand fear anymore you should understand! You wield forces of space and time that are simply incredible and unknowable for me even the most advanced scientists on Earth couldn't understand what you do let alone recreate it! Meanwhile I'm still adjusting to the fact that my college sweetheart was in fact an alien who is at least a thousand years my senior. Two years after you'd gone I wondered why you'd gone, was it because I 'burned' you, was it because I wasn't good enough?! Then just when I think my life is fixed, you return as this cold distant alien creature, and God help me, all these feelings return! Even though you couldn't give a toss about humanity and a life other than your own, I still cared enough to come with you!."

Stacey stopped as she realised that Gregory was no longer listening, but looking at a flashing red light on the console. "Are you listening to me?!" she barracked angrily.

Gregory didn't move, "It's gone. All. Gone."

"What's gone?"

"Gallifrey."

"What?" 

"My Home-World has gone, it's all gone."

"I thought you didn't care." Snorted Stacey harshly, "I thought you have nothing there left for you."

"You don't understand. You'll never understand what it's like to lose a home twice!" Gregory said this harshly before he strode off into the darkness.

"I'm sorry!" shouted Stacey after him. Gregory had gone.

***

It had taken an hour before she had found him, he had been sitting in what looked like a tailors room with two dummies stood modelling what looked like eighteenth century outfits. He hadn't been crying there were no marks, he was just staring into space. He barely registered her presence; she kneeled next to him. He was slumped in a leather-winged chair, it was cracked and some of the leather was peeling off. She put her hand on his cold one, there was no response.

She spoke softly, "I'm sorry."

"You said that before." There was a pause "I don't need your pity."

Stacey stood up stung then knelt again, "It's right but you don't seem to understand what it's like to lose someone you love."

Gregory laughed, it was short and mirthless, "You seem to think that I don't know how to love someone, I have lived and loved. I have loved too much: Alexei, Felix, Phyllis, Salyavin.so many names and faces, I have loved and died with too many people."

"I didn't know."

"And why should you? I never told you. I never told I loved you."

"I loved you too."

"I know."

"Why can't it be the same? As it was."

"Because all good things." Gregory left the rest unspoken.

"But nothing has changed, you and I are together again!"

"It has for me, I no longer human. I cannot love you as I was.innocently."

"But surely you knew what you were."

"Why do think I lived with Phyllis?! I knew nothing of what I was! She helped me and she paid the price!"

"What happened?"

"She was killed by some former colleagues of mine."

"Why?"

"Because she was my Cousin."

"I have a new life with you," he smiled, "I'm sure we can remain friends."

"Just friends."

"I'm afraid so."

She looked at him for a minute and then reached over and hugged him. He seemed quite surprised, but held her back. As soon as she released him, he stood up again.

"I promised to show you the Universe, didn't I?"

"It's such a big place."

"Then we'll settle for the interesting bits, shall we?" Stacey nodded, "Come on then." He offered his hand. She took it and they walked to the console room.

FIN


End file.
